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Thursday, July 19, 2007

When I was in high school, one of the poets we studied was Tennyson. There were a number of poems that we read as a class, and then we were given an assignment to find another poem and write an essay on it. I wanted to find a poem that no one else in the class would choose, so I went to the library and borrowed a very fat volume - the poet's complete works. I eventually settled on "Locksley Hall" which as I recall was a rather political poem about his vision of the future. But the one that really struck me was a poem that was written when he was about seventeen, "The Skipping Rope". Not because it was good, but because it was apallingly bad. Or so I thought then, and I still can't see anything in it that would make it worth publishing. Or that wouldn't embarrass the h* out of any seventeen year old boy today.

Actually, there is one thing that I think makes it worth publishing - the sheer comfort of knowing that even a great poet can write bad poetry. So, for this Poetry Thursday, I am reproducing it here, and if anyone can see any merit in it, I'd be delighted for you to leave a comment to that effect, and explain why (I could always use a little more education).

The Skipping-RopeSure never yet was antelope Could skip so lightly by. Stand off, or else my skipping-rope Will hit you in the eye. How lightly Whirls the skipping-rope ! How fairy-like you fly ! Go, get you gone, you muse and mope -- I hate that silly sigh. Nay, dearest, teach me how to hope, Or tell me how to die. There, take it, take my skipping-rope, And hang yourself thereby.

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

For some better poetry by Tennyson, you could try "Ulysses", "The Lady of Shalott", "The Eagle" for a start. A google search will reveal many others.

The poem, of course, is directed toward a Muse that is not working well for him at the moment--he is suffering from Writer's Block!...(if you can give me no hope, no skipping words, then go and hang yourself!

I think the poem may have been saved by the dark last line - if it wasn't for the clumsiness of what goes before it. Plus, as you refer to as well, the sheer embarrassment of a boy writing about a skipping rope ...

About Me

She tried hard to be like the others/she struggled to catch a ball/she never quite managed a cartwheel/after much practice she stood on her head./When she grew up she turned to science/she thought she would turn the world upside down/after a while she realised that the world had stayed in its proper place all along/and she was still standing on her head.